Am I doing combat wrong?

By cyclocius, in Dark Heresy

Posted at

Cyclocius - At this point, I'm certain you've already figured out you didn't do anything wrong. I laughed when I read your description because I immediately thought: "Huh, Cyclocius is running Pulp Fiction ." gui%C3%B1o.gif

We designed Dark Heresy with "cinematic reality" in mind - I've always felt we got the balance pretty close to dead on specifically because there are ongoing discussions between those who want combat to be a bit more lethal and those who think it is too lethal already.

Now as to what Tetragon Tanebrae said, I have a few answers.

First off, experience doesn't come cheaply in DH - when a player chooses to spend a bunch of xp on getting extra Wounds and the Talents that make them into a hard-arse, they are telling you that they want to soak up the punishment. So pour it on - feel free to beat on them regularly and see how much they can take.

Now as to your bad ass problem, Tetragon - I would go with Hallucinogen grenades. Always good for a laugh with those "difficult to kill" types. Web Pistols / Webbers can be fun, too.

The real answer though is in the nature of the opposition you present to your players. When dealing with a group of really dangerous fighters, it is useful to sometimes confront them with enemies that they can't just kill. Well connected Tech-Priests accusing them of tech-heresy, scheming priests with ironclad alibis, etc. - that is a discussion outside of "doing combat wrong" though. gran_risa.gif

Posted at

cyclocius said:

N0-1_H3r3 said:

cyclocius said:

Now, that's what concerns me. He's your standard guardsman, TB 4 and Flak Armour but...he took 9 shotgun blasts at pointblank (with scatter an' all) and he survived?

Scatter is absolutely lethal... so long as you're unarmoured. Guard Flak Armour is excellent armour in its own right, especially for a starting character, and makes characters significantly more resilient (contrary to its virtually worthless presence in the 40k tabletop game, where Flak Armour is a formality). The average shotgun blast deals 1d10+4 I damage per hit (approximately 9-10 wounds, before reductions for armour and toughness), which means that 9 hits can, on average, bring a guardsman with TB4 and Guard Flak to 0 wounds in a single round, but too much below that average and the guardsman is still standing...

It sounds here like you simply rolled poorly against a target that shotguns aren't best-suited to deal with (an armoured one).

Huh...Okay thanks :)

Just so they don't get too carried away I might have to target the Psyker next time >.>

Shoot your guardsman at point-blank range (within 3 meters) on full auto with an autogun. If you roll spectacularly (like say 20's on your ballistics skill) you will kill the guardsman in one round. You get +20 from full auto, +30 from point blank range, and with an average score in the 30's for BS, that puts you in the 80's. If you roll in the 20's, that's six degrees of success, which indicates 7 hits. Per NPC attacking. I also am kind of a ****, and make my guardsmen or anyone with head armor let me know if they're wearing it or not, since wearing a combat helmet to protect your head at ALL times draws attention and makes people think you're kitted out to kill. 9 times out of ten, when a firefight breaks out, they aren't wearing their helmet, because they weren't expecting to be in a fight. That means that they always are in danger of the dreaded head shot, which will drop someone quickly.

Also, I'll impart an age-old mantra that should be the GM's code in any fight, in any game:

GEEK THE MAGE FIRST.

As soon as the mage drops a fireball, or lightening bolt, or the psyker manifests, everyone proceeds to blow the f*cking psyker into the next realm. Either that, or the psyker takes cover, and can't manifest as easily. Grenade him, flame him, shoot him, just GEEK THE MAGE FIRST.

Posted at

TheFlatline said:

GEEK THE MAGE FIRST.

As soon as the mage drops a fireball, or lightening bolt, or the psyker manifests, everyone proceeds to blow the f*cking psyker into the next realm. Either that, or the psyker takes cover, and can't manifest as easily. Grenade him, flame him, shoot him, just GEEK THE MAGE FIRST.

In the 40k universe, this comes with an added requirement - as soon as the psyker demonstrates himself to be a psyker in a fight, the person who observed it is absolutely required to bellow "WITCH!" and start opening fire in that direction. Psykers hate that, because it draws lots of attention to them, and if the fight is going on in a crowded place, often draws the hostility of random bystanders, local law enforcement, nearby bounty hunters, etc, etc, and can potentially complicate an ongoing investigation, while giving the group's adversaries a convenient excuse for their actions (the Witch made us do it), that cannot be entirely proven or disregarded without another psyker present.

In short, the psyker revealing himself is perhaps the single most ill-advised thing that can happen to a group of Acolytes, which will cause them far more trouble than almost anything else.

Posted at

N0-1_H3r3 said:

TheFlatline said:

GEEK THE MAGE FIRST.

As soon as the mage drops a fireball, or lightening bolt, or the psyker manifests, everyone proceeds to blow the f*cking psyker into the next realm. Either that, or the psyker takes cover, and can't manifest as easily. Grenade him, flame him, shoot him, just GEEK THE MAGE FIRST.

In the 40k universe, this comes with an added requirement - as soon as the psyker demonstrates himself to be a psyker in a fight, the person who observed it is absolutely required to bellow "WITCH!" and start opening fire in that direction. Psykers hate that, because it draws lots of attention to them, and if the fight is going on in a crowded place, often draws the hostility of random bystanders, local law enforcement, nearby bounty hunters, etc, etc, and can potentially complicate an ongoing investigation, while giving the group's adversaries a convenient excuse for their actions (the Witch made us do it), that cannot be entirely proven or disregarded without another psyker present.

In short, the psyker revealing himself is perhaps the single most ill-advised thing that can happen to a group of Acolytes, which will cause them far more trouble than almost anything else.

In the last campaign I ran a psyker almost got killed by a random guy with a wrench in that exact situation (back when I allowed any old NPC to righteous fury), but a retroactive dodge saved his life/fate point.